Last fall Liz had a high school reunion coming up in New Jersey she wanted to attend to see some old friends that she had not kept up with since her school days. We both were contemplating on going but realized it would cost approximately $1500 to fly up to New Jersey, stay in a hotel, and rent a car so she gave me an option...either go to the reunion...OR...Liz had seen an "Alpaca Commercial" on Fox News and wanted to visit an Alpaca Farm that same weekend during "National Alpaca Farm Days". I decided to go with "plan B" thinking it would be much easier and less expensive way to go. Boy, was I wrong!! At least I will admit being wrong this time! I did some research after googling "alpacas" and found Destiny Alpacas a short 2 hour drive from our house and called Larry and Cathi to schedule an appointment for our visit. Cathi was excited for us to come visit because they just had a new cria born that day! I had no idea just how cute new crias were at the time so I was still thinking "plan B" was definitely the way to go!

Well...as you can imagine it was love at first sight! The next thing I saw was Liz standing there holding "Jet" (Liz actually named him!) with the biggest smile I have ever seen! I think it was even bigger than the one she had walking down the aisle to marry me! Only about a month later we sold some stock that had split in half during the declining economy in 2008 and wrote a check for $27,700.00 for two (2) pregnant females! Wow...the $1500.00 high school reunion all of the sudden seemed to be the smarter choice!

We now have 5 Hucayas (2 males and 3 females) and a start to our dream lifestyle of being together raising alpacas. Liz and I were searching for an alternative investment opportunity that would offer a substantial tax shelter and a way of life that we could enjoy many years after retiring from our "real" jobs. Our initial goal is to get the herd to a comfortable and manageable level for Liz to mainly maintain while I remain working for another 6-8 years. Mid-term goals of having a profitable farm in 7-8 years where we both can work the farm and live a comfortable life after Tripp is through college.